Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts

A Full Day’s Work

A Full Day’s Work (A busy day or nine unusual murders in the same day by a single man whose job it is not / Une journée bien remplie ou Neuf meurtres insolites dans une même journée par un seul homme dont ce n'est pas le métier ). Jean-Louis Trintignant, 1973.

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Edition screened: Kino/Lorber Blu-ray, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: Disregard for killing domestic animals.


Details:

1) We see the perpetrator planting a bomb with a timer in a utilitarian building that is overcrowded with turkeys, 14:36-15:00. In addition to the anticipatory dread that these birds will be blown up, the scene is distressing as the turkeys are crammed together, crashing into one another and their food dispenser.

2) The perpetrator murders a woman who lives alone with many cats (25:45), leaving the cats locked in a house without a caretaker.

3) We return to the shabby building filled with turkeys at 1:24:30, then see it explode from a distance at 1:25:00.


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Vivre sa vie

Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live). Jean-Luc Godard, 1962.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #512, released 2010. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.


Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.


A 1956 Gottlieb Sea Belles in the café at 8:20. A different unidentified table is first seen at 29:52 with a better view of the left side of the backglass at 35:35.


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Game Over

Game Over. Bernard Villiot, 1984.

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Edition screened: Included on Arron Blu-ray The Grand Duel, released 2019. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 8 minutes.


Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.



A 1981 Gottlieb Black Hole, figures prominently in the beginning of this short film.



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Merry-Go-Round

Merry-Go-Round. Jacques Rivette, 1981.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Blu-ray box set The Jacques Rivette Collection, released 2016. English language and French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 160 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Lower Depths (Renoir)

The Lower Depths (Les Bas-fonds). Jean Renoir, 1936.

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Edition screened: Criterion DVD #239, released 2004. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 89 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.



The Criterion release also includes Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 adaptation of The Lower Depths.


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La Jetée

La Jetée. Chris Marker, 1963.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray / DVD #387 La Jetée/Sans Soleil, released 2012. Original French or original English narration. Runtime approximately 27 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Speech

The Speech (Le discours). Laurent Tirard, 2020.

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Edition screened: Warner Blu-ray, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Aviator’s Wife

The Aviator’s Wife: Comedies and Proverbs #1/6 (La femme de l'aviateur). Éric Rohmer, 1981.

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Edition screened: Blu-ray included in Potemkine box set Coffret Éric Rohmer, l’intégrale, released 2013. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 143 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

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Love in the Afternoon

Love in the Afternoon: Six Moral Tales #6/6 (L'amour l’après-midi; Chloé in the Afternoon). Éric Rohmer, 1972.

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Edition screened: Blu-ray included in Potemkine box set Coffret Éric Rohmer, released 2013. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Classe tous risques

Classe tous risques (The Big Risk). Claude Sautet, 1960.

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Edition screened: BFI Blu-ray, released 2014. French and Italian languages with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 112 minutes.


Summary: A bratty young woman teases a cat with a goldfish plucked from an aquarium. The fish is replaced unharmed.


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César et Rosalie

César et Rosalie. Claude Sautet, 1972.

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Edition screened: Studio Canal Blu-ray, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 111 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Les visiteurs du soir

Les visiteurs du soir (The Devil’s Envoys). Marcel Carné, 1942.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #626, released 2012. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 122 minutes.


Summary: Unkind and stressful situations for animals, although we see no actual harm come to them.


Details:

1) A trained bear has chains wrapped around his head and is led away walking upright, 6:38-7:00.

2) Lucifer smashes a vase of flowers in a hissy fit, and numerous snakes are released from the vase as it breaks on the floor, 1:29:10-1:29:13.



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Jacquot de Nantes

Jacquot de Nantes. Agnès Varda, 1991.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 10) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 118 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Agnès V. by Jane B.

Agnès V. by Jane B. Walter Hart, 2020.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 9) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 16 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Devil, Probably

The Devil, Probably (Le diable probablement). Robert Bresson, 1977.

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Edition screened: Viewed online. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: Bludgeoning of a seal; typical fishing abuse.


Details:

1) A man beats a seal on the head three times with the wooden handle of a sickle, 8:44-8:48. Blood appears on the seal’s coat.

2) Characters hook a fish and bring it up on land, the fish still thrashing about on the rod (56:17-56:30).


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No Home Movie

No Home Movie. Chantal Akerman, 2015.

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Edition screened: Icarus DVD, released 2016. French language with English. Runtime approximately 115 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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The Bride Wore Black

The Bride Wore Black (La mariée était en noir). François Truffaut, 1968.

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Edition screened: Radiance Blu-ray, released 2023. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 107 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Baxter, Vera Baxter

Baxter, Vera Baxter. Marguerite Duras, 1977.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1172 Two Films by Marguerite Duras, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


Films by Duras often include something structural that is fresh and interesting to me. In Baxter, Vera Baxter, Duras allows a simple up-tempo musical repeat to be heard through the entire film; just a two-beat rhythmic strumming between two chords with percussion and improvised meandering flute. This diegetic music is acknowledged by the characters as local revelers. The volume rises and falls to match the action and sometimes fades away almost completely.


The Criterion BD also includes Duras’ India Song (1975).


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India Song

India Song. Marguerite Duras, 1975.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion Blu-ray #1172 Two Films by Marguerite Duras, released 2021. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 120 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


The Criterion BD also includes Duras’ Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977).


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The Wounded Man

The Wounded Man (L’homme blessé). Patrice Chéreau, 1983.

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Edition screened: Altered Innocence Blu-ray, released 2023. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 109 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.



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